Jack Smith, the Biden regime’s former special counsel, is back in the news with his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The Oversight Project has uncovered new records that don’t focus on the settled question of why Smith used federal power to target political enemies, but instead on how he was able to do it.

Understanding the “how” is more important at this stage. We all know why the weaponization of the Biden years happened. It happened because they wanted to extinguish a political movement so that people from around the country could never truly shake up Washington, D.C., again.

For those who believe Smith’s investigation crossed the line from legitimate law enforcement into political targeting, that broader reach is the central issue.

We also know why it can happen again if Democrats take back power.

In Democrats’ minds, they have unfinished business. They regard Donald Trump and his supporters as too great a threat to stop short the next time. That makes it essential to understand how the weaponization of government happened, how it could happen again, and what reforms are needed now to prevent a repeat.

Instead, systemic reform has largely fallen by the wayside, replaced by political declarations that government weaponization has been solved once and for all.

With few signs of meaningful accountability, the need for concrete action is urgent.

January 6 gave Democrats the justification they needed to discard restraint and use the powers of federal law enforcement against their political opponents. That effort did not stop with President Trump. It extended to his supporters, especially those who challenged the conduct of the 2020 election or became prominent figures in the broader America First movement.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith in November 2022 to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his actions surrounding January 6. Smith became the central figure in the federal effort to prosecute the former president.

Smith took over the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation, a sweeping inquiry that gathered records involving Republican politicians, Trump allies, and organizations.

L-R; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

The investigation grew out of an inspector general inquiry that was later folded into Arctic Frost. Smith has cited that earlier investigation in denying knowledge of actions taken before his involvement, including those associated with former FBI agent Timothy R. Thibault.

According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Smith’s team issued hundreds of subpoenas involving more than 400 Republican individuals and organizations. It also obtained phone records connected to 20 current or former Republican members of Congress.

Newly released records provide more detail about how Smith’s office conducted the investigation.

The scale is worth considering. Investigators collected cellphone records, audio, video, and other digital data involving elected officials as well as private citizens engaged in political activity.

Understanding exactly what was collected, from whom, and under what authority is essential to judging whether the investigation stayed within legitimate law enforcement bounds.

Smith’s office then faced the tough task of sorting through a vast trove of information and building a case for trial.

The investigation also gave prosecutors an unusually detailed picture of Trump’s political network. If the argument is that this information could be used for purposes beyond prosecution, the piece should show that rather than assume it.

Venue mattered too. Washington, D.C., offered prosecutors a jury pool markedly less favorable to Trump than many other jurisdictions.

Through Freedom of Information Act litigation, the Oversight Project obtained 844 pages of records from Smith’s office.

Those documents show that in July 2023, just weeks before Trump was indicted over his actions surrounding January 6, Smith’s team said it was in “desperate need” of forensic video software from Axon, a major law enforcement vendor best known for Tasers and police body cameras.

Axon has since drawn attention as cities across the country consider the company’s expanding surveillance technology.

The urgency inside Smith’s office was enough to override normal purchasing procedures, despite initial objections from a member of his own staff.

On July 13, 2023, the office’s executive officer wrote that Smith “supports more strict requirements than DOJ’s standard policies.” Even so, she authorized the purchase “prior to creating the UFMS obligation” — before the expense had been entered into the Justice Department’s financial system — because “the purchase is urgent.”

The order was placed July 14. Axon shipped the software licenses the next day.

Eighteen days later, on August 1, Smith indicted Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and events surrounding January 6.

The records leave key questions unanswered.

The Justice Department withheld the purchase price. It also has not disclosed what video or audio Smith’s team needed to process so urgently. Given the timing, the material may have been related to the January 6 case, but the records do not establish that.

Axon’s proposal also included language allowing the government to share “de-identified segments of Agency Content with Axon to develop new products.”

The Justice Department released only an unsigned copy of the agreement. As a result, it remains unclear whether Smith’s office agreed to let a private vendor use investigative material in product development.

Smith’s investigation likely cost taxpayers more than $50 million, according to a Fox News analysis of Justice Department spending reports. How much of that money went to outside vendors such as Axon remains unclear. Some expenses may have been recorded through the Antitrust Division or U.S. attorneys' offices, making the full cost difficult to trace.

But we do know that when Smith needed help targeting President Trump, he called Axon in a rush, and the company was more than happy to answer. The grand jury indictment over January 6 that quickly followed appears to be a natural consequence of Smith finally being able to dig through the results of his dragnet.

Smith’s office was far less careful with its own records. When it moved its files at the start of the investigation, Justice Department e-discovery staff warned the transfer “will change the metadata on those files (create and modify dates).”

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The office replied, “The team has no issue with the changes to metadata.” Its records officer decided the team’s Microsoft Teams chats were “not necessary to be moved.” Phones and an iPad used by Smith’s lawyers were returned to other Justice Department offices, with nothing in the records showing their contents were preserved first.

In the end, Smith did not secure a conviction.

The classified documents case was dismissed after a federal judge ruled that Smith’s appointment was unlawful. The election case was narrowed by the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, then dismissed after Trump won the 2024 election and Justice Department policy barred continued prosecution of an incoming president.

Smith resigned 10 days before Trump returned to office.

For many Americans, the arguments and passions of that period have faded. For those who were investigated, subpoenaed, or otherwise drawn into the government’s scrutiny, they have not.

Smith remains one of the central figures associated with that period. His return to the news is a reminder that the powers of federal prosecution remain in place regardless of which party controls the executive branch.

The damage was not limited to the final disposition of the cases.

Years of litigation brought legal bills, damaging headlines, invasive discovery, and scrutiny of people beyond Trump himself. The investigation placed an entire political network under examination by the federal government.

Trump was the central defendant. But the investigation reached far beyond him, touching elected officials, activists, and others associated with the America First movement.

For those who believe the investigation crossed the line from legitimate law enforcement into political targeting, that broader reach is the central issue.

Understanding how Jack Smith almost pulled it off, and who he worked with, would go a long way toward understanding how lawfare works. The senators questioning Smith this week have a chance to start. Republicans would be wise to take the leads developed by the Oversight Project and get to the bottom of it.

Here we go again: Ex-USPS worker charged for allegedly tossing hundreds of mail-in ballots in the trash

President Donald Trump routinely catches flack both for acknowledging the vulnerabilities of American elections and for taking steps to ensure that citizens' votes are properly cast, received, and counted.

While Democrats and the liberal media like to pretend that the president is off base and that "American elections are safe and secure," evidence to the contrary continues to mount.

'Ballot integrity is not a partisan issue.'

On Tuesday, a former letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service was arrested for allegedly singling out, then dumping hundreds of mail-in ballots at the beginning of his shift on June 3.

Damon Matai Seei, a 34-year-old resident of Payson, Utah, was reportedly covering a colleague's mail route and tasked with delivering at least 300 mail-in ballots to Americans in the Eagle Mountain area so they could vote in the June 23 primary election.

The detention memo alleges that Seei admitted to chucking the ballots in a dumpster outside a church because he wanted to "lighten his workload" in order to go home earlier.

As the result of the alleged ballot dump, some voters were unable to vote in the election, said the detention memo.

The incident came to light after numerous voters in the Eagle Mountain area complained to Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson about not receiving their mail-in ballots.

The dumpster in the Utah church parking lot. Justice Department.

Davidson investigated the matter and discovered that voter participation in the area "was remarkably low," said the detention memo. An estimated 304 registered voters in the area never received their ballots.

USPS records helped identify which day the mail-in ballots were supposed to be delivered and by whom.

Seei is accused of driving to a church parking lot that wasn't on his route roughly 1.5 hours into his June 3 shift, discarding mail into the dumpster, then clocking out of work three hours later.

The ex-postman allegedly suggested to investigators that he was motivated by sloth, not politics, claiming he is not a "very political person" and did not intend to "disrupt any political process."

While Seei allegedly told investigators he just wanted to "get rid of advertisement mail," the detention memo claims that he admitted to setting aside the mail-in ballots at the beginning of his shift.

The ex-postman has been charged with one count of unlawful secretion, destruction, and delay of mail.

If convicted, Seei could face up to five years in prison and/or a hefty fine. His next court appearance is set for Nov. 30. It is unclear when he left the USPS and under what circumstances.

Blaze News has reached out to the USPS and the Utah Federal Public Defender for comment.

"When the defendant allegedly threw away the mail he was entrusted to deliver, he also threw away the chance for those citizens to exercise their right to vote," U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak for the District of Utah said in a statement.

"When American voters lawfully cast their vote, they should feel confident that it is counted," said acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. "Allegedly throwing away hundreds of ballots is a serious federal crime that undermines the integrity of our elections. Ballot integrity is not a partisan issue."

During a press conference about the case on Tuesday, McCotter highlighted a USPS rule issued pursuant to Trump's March election executive order that "would have required mail-in ballots to have special tracking and design features."

"Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, that regulation was blocked by a judge in Massachusetts," continued McCotter. "In fact, she blocked the rule before it was even issued. That was reversed, but she issued another injunction. And the litigation extended for so long that that regulation will not go into effect before the '26 midterms."

McCotter appears to have been referring to U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani.

The deputy AG added on X, "It’s a real shame that the courts blocked a commonsense USPS regulation that would have required enhanced tracking for mail-in ballots. It would have ensured that ballots stay out of the wrong hands — and also end up where they belong. Alas."

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China’s hackers are hiding in plain sight

Google recently reported that a China-linked hacking group ran artificial intelligence tools inside compromised networks. The technique let the hackers use victims’ computing resources and credentials while reducing the traffic that might expose them. The group also targeted North American academic, medical, military, and technology-research institutions. That is a serious warning.

The disclosure followed a Justice Department and FBI operation against QScan and QTRouter, two platforms allegedly used by a Chinese state-sponsored group known as QTFY. Prosecutors say the group, employed by Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology, sold hacking services to customers that included China’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army.

Chinese cyberattacks are only going to get more capable. We need a concerted plan to protect our infrastructure and private information before it’s too late.

Court records identify NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Departments of Energy, Justice, and Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Senate among the targets. They also list hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies, financial institutions, and defense contractors. The public evidence does not show that every listed network was breached. Still, it’s a major concern.

The operation illustrates how Beijing can combine government direction, private contractors, compromised devices, and commercial infrastructure in a sustained espionage campaign. Diplomatic engagement with Chinese leaders does not eliminate that threat, and cybersecurity policy must account for it regardless of the state of bilateral relations.

On Aug. 26, the same day officials announced the QScan and QTRouter seizures, the White House declared a national emergency involving foreign-produced bulk-power equipment. The order lets the government restrict transactions involving equipment that poses an unacceptable security risk as well as identify, isolate, monitor, or replace vulnerable components.

The risk is substantial. Grid operators increasingly depend on networked sensors, controllers, and other devices associated with the “internet of things.” Connectivity can improve efficiency and monitoring, but it also expands the attack surface. The fear is less that China will shut off the lights tomorrow than that it will slowly gain the ability to cause blackouts and spread panic — a security advantage it can leverage.

The administration’s Cyber Strategy for America calls for hardening critical infrastructure and its supply chains, including the energy grid, data centers, water utilities, hospitals, and telecommunications systems. The recent cases show why that work must extend beyond power plants to vendors, contractors, and the devices that connect essential services.

Cyber defense is only part of the problem. Washington must also decide how to evaluate Chinese companies whose technology enters sensitive American systems.

Nanjing Xinjiuwei is a useful example: The government alleges that the company employed QTFY and received payments from China’s Ministry of State Security. No surprise that plenty of other Chinese companies have also engaged in espionage.

The Pentagon this summer added Alibaba and BYD to its list of entities it identifies as Chinese military companies operating in the United States, effectively banning them from securing defense contracts. What took so long?

Smederevac/iStock/Getty Images

Huawei presents a more dangerous case. The Justice Department has accused Huawei and several subsidiaries of racketeering, trade-secret theft, and concealing business in countries subject to sanctions. Separately, federal law restricts agencies and contractors from using specified Huawei telecommunications equipment, and regulators have designated the company’s equipment a national-security risk.

The company’s U.S. research affiliate, Futurewei, also drew congressional scrutiny after lawmakers said it shared a California office complex with Nvidia for years. Nvidia has said its operations remained separate. Huawei’s past relationships with American universities likewise prompted several institutions to review or end research funding arrangements.

The American economic system is open by nature, and this risks allowing easy access to malefactors like Huawei.

Successive administrations have maintained or expanded restrictions on Huawei while encouraging alternatives in the global telecommunications market. National-security officials also cited competition with Huawei when supporting the Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquisition of Juniper Networks. That case illustrates how industrial policy can overlap with security interests.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has catalogued 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States since 2000. Its survey excludes espionage against U.S. allies and more than 1,200 intellectual-property lawsuits brought by American companies against Chinese entities.

The policy challenge is broader than any single breach or company. The United States must secure critical networks, investigate firms on the evidence, enforce procurement and export-control rules consistently, and work with allies on interoperable alternatives.

Chinese cyberattacks are only going to get more capable. We need a concerted plan to protect our infrastructure and private information before it’s too late.

How The U.S. Can Use Maritime Prize Law Against Iranian Oil Tankers

DOJ is reviving maritime prize courts to seize the tankers running Iran's sanctioned oil out from under the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

The left has found its next Trump villain

As the saying goes, “if you’re catching flak, you’re over the target.” That line has followed President Trump for years, and it now fits Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Before joining the administration, Blanche spent years as one of Trump’s defense attorneys as the former president faced civil suits and criminal prosecutions brought by deranged accusers, state officials, and the federal government itself.

Blanche will be judged by whether he stays within the law. He should be. But he should not be expected to govern as though the election never happened.

Blanche then served as deputy attorney general for more than a year. After Pam Bondi’s dismissal in April, he became acting attorney general and was confirmed by the Senate on August 8, 50-49, with two Republicans voting against him.

He had already made himself a target.

In June 2025, following a Trump executive order, Blanche issued guidance narrowing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and directing prosecutors to focus on cases tied to U.S. interests and national security, including competition with China.

He has also pushed for prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey over his infamous “8647” Instagram post, prioritized the arrest of illegal immigrants with criminal records, and defended aggressive federal enforcement during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.

Once Blanche became attorney general, reporters pressed him to promise “independence” from the president. He refused to perform the ritual.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

That refusal triggered the familiar argument that Republican attorneys general must prove their distance from Republican presidents before they can be treated as legitimate. Democrat attorneys general rarely face the same presumption.

The pattern has continued. Blanche’s support for allowing certain nonviolent felons to petition for restoration of gun rights brought the label “Trump goon” from the left. His refusal to embrace the media’s preferred definition of “independence” led to accusations that he was attacking the department itself. ABC’s coverage of his handling of Epstein-related questions turned moral compromise by association into another dishonest line of attack.

The common thread is not that every Blanche decision is beyond criticism. It is that vigorous service to Trump is itself somehow disqualifying.

That standard reflects the old arrangement Republicans were expected to accept: Democrats and the media set the norms, Republicans prove their respectability by obeying them, and any serious use of lawful power is presumed corrupt unless the left approves.

Blanche does not appear interested in that arrangement.

In his time at the Justice Department, Blanche has shown a willingness to use the department’s lawful authority in pursuit of the administration’s agenda without apologizing for the fact that the president won an election and appointed him to do exactly that.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

That’s why the attacks will only intensify.

Other Trump officials draw plenty of criticism, but Blanche is increasingly being treated like Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, or Trump himself: not merely as an opponent, but as someone whose refusal to play by the old rules is seen as a threat.

The left insists it fears politicized justice. What it appears to fear more is a Republican attorney general who will not accept a one-way definition of restraint.

Blanche will be judged by whether he stays within the law. He should be. But he should not be expected to govern as though the election never happened.

That is the real fight: whether a Republican administration is allowed to use lawful power without first asking permission from the people who opposed it.

Trump administration closes trucking schools linked to incompetent foreign drivers

Numerous Americans have died horrifically after foreigners were issued commercial driver's licenses and took to the roads in what U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has characterized as "80,000 pound missiles."

To neutralize these threats, the Trump administration has cracked down on unqualified drivers and taken off the road those commercial truck drivers who can't speak English; purged thousands of unqualified training schools from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration registry; and barred DACA recipients, asylum-seekers, refugees, TPS holders, and other noncitizens from obtaining, renewing, upgrading, or transferring non-domiciled CDL licenses.

'Congress must now do its part.'

Expanding on this campaign to keep American roads safe, the DOT announced on Monday that it has executed the emergency closure of over 110 commercial driver-training schools linked to thousands of drivers who failed English language proficiency tests.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration checked the records of over 5,000 CDL holders who failed the ELP requirements against records in the Training Provider Registry to determine which schools were certifying these failed assimilators. The agency ultimately identified over 110 entry-level driver training providers that must now cease all operations.

The FMCSA also launched nearly 400 investigations into training schools in 40 states. Investigators found "serious cases of non-compliance," resulting in hundreds of additional proposed removals from the Training Provider Registry.

According to the DOT, drivers certified by the over 160 training schools that were served with notices of proposed removal are linked to 239 commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities.

"To fully root out the scourge of fraud, hold criminals accountable, and restore safety, we need the support of federal law enforcement," Duffy said in a statement. "I am so grateful for President Trump raising the alarm on this issue, and to Vice President Vance for leading the charge to crack down on fraud nationwide. From states failing to follow the law to shady training schools and illicit companies, together we will tackle every link in the chain."

The DOT is hardly alone in this campaign to spare Americans from incompetent foreign truckers.

Homeland Security Investigations is working with the DOT and FMCSA on a criminal investigation initiative focused on "CDL fraud, unauthorized employment, identity-document fraud, financial crime, money laundering, labor exploitation, and potential links to human smuggling, drug trafficking, and cartel activity."

Starting Monday, HSI conducted a surge at over 200 driving schools and targeted CDL-related businesses, schools, carriers, and employers.

"Criminals who exploit our nation’s transportation systems through fraud and deception are not only breaking the law — they are putting the safety and security of the American public at risk," said HSI acting Executive Associate Director John Condon. "HSI will bring the full weight of our investigative authorities, financial expertise, and global law enforcement capabilities to this historic, whole-of-government effort."

Enforcement and Removal Operations will participate in the surge this week, which will focus on Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin. ERO officers will work with FMCSA-certified inspectors to "conduct commercial vehicle enforcement activity and inspection checkpoints at separate locations."

The Justice Department, which is also involved, announced on Monday the formation of Joint Task Force Crossroads of America — an interagency task force committed to enhancing roadway safety in part by deterring illegal trucking practices and holding offenders accountable.

Vice President JD Vance emphasized the importance of cracking down on fraud in the trucking industry, telling reporters on Monday that fraudulent CDLs in recent years not only made American streets and highways "a lot less safe" but were "bad for people's jobs" and undercut American wages.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association lauded this interagency initiative.

President Todd Spencer said in a statement given to Blaze News, "OOIDA and professional truck drivers across America commend Secretary Duffy and [FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs] for taking concrete actions to crack down on fraudulent training operations and restore rigorous English language proficiency enforcement."

Spencer added, "Congress must now do its part and pass Dalilah’s Law to ensure CDL mills remain closed and English language proficiency enforcement is permanently made the law of the land."

H.R. 5688, Dalilah's Law, would ban states from issuing commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens and limit issuance to U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and holders of specific work visas. The legislation would also require the revocation of any existing ineligible CDLs.

The proposed law takes its name from Dalilah Coleman, a little girl injured in a car accident allegedly caused by an illegal alien from India who obtained a commercial driver's license from Gov. Gavin Newsom's Department of Motor Vehicles.

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Trump's DOJ exposes how the Biden FBI didn't stop targeting Catholics even after getting caught

The Biden FBI targeted adherents of what it dubbed "traditionalist Catholicism" and suggested in a widely distributed internal assessment that certain Catholic beliefs were linked to violent extremism and criminal activity.

Although a whistleblower exposed the bureau's abuse of counterterrorism tools to smear Catholics and SSPX adherents in 2023, some in the Biden FBI continued on with the project, according to a new report from the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group.

'History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure.'

"The Richmond Memo was a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight," said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. in a statement released Thursday. "No more."

The investigation

The FBI's assessment smearing members of a Catholic sect and certain Catholics with socially conservative views as potential extremists was the outgrowth of a Richmond field office investigation into an individual identified as "Target 1" in the new report but revealed to be Xavier Louis Lopez through the footnotes.

Lopez was on the FBI's radar due to his alleged "violent and racially motivated ideology" posts online, assault of police officers, and espousal of "violent, racial views" in state prison following a felony vandalism conviction.

After his release from state prison in June 2021, Lopez — who last year was sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for illegally possessing Molotov cocktails — began attending a chapel affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, a group that the Vatican declared schismatic in July.

According to the new DOJ report, in November 2022, the FBI reached out twice to the priest who oversaw the chapel and grilled him about Lopez's religiosity, political beliefs, and involvement in the chapel. After the priest finally signaled that he could not "violate" the relationship he had with the people of his church and said, "I don't want to be involved," the FBI launched an investigation into the priest and his chapel.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Upon discovering that the priest's uncle was himself a priest ordained by the late British Bishop Richard Williamson, the leader of an SSPX breakaway group who was convicted in Germany of Holocaust denial, the FBI expanded its investigation to the uncle.

The FBI ramped up its surveillance of the two SSPX priests, tracking their movements and scrutinizing credit card details. The uncle's phone was even searched at Boston Logan International Airport to determine his "level of contact with his nephew, Priest 1," said the report.

Days after the Boston Field Office surveilled the uncle and a travel companion, former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin leaked the internal assessment — commonly referred to as the Richmond Catholic Memo.

The memo

In late 2022, FBI intelligence analysts cooked up a memo about the supposed "increasing intersection of rad-trad (radical-traditional) Catholics and DVEs [domestic violent extremists]" despite acknowledging elsewhere that there was insufficient evidence to point to any such increase.

At the time, analysts could identify only two potentially relevant cases elsewhere in the nation — one of which concerned a dead subject in Oregon and the other pertaining to an SSPX-linked subject who moved to Wisconsin. That was evidently enough for the FBI bad actors to presume there must a pattern and to create a document suggesting as much.

The Richmond Catholic Memo was developed partly on the basis of information from the Portland field office, which was apparently heavily reliant on an Anti-Defamation League "dossier"; a proposed paragraph from the Milwaukee field office; the Richmond field office's investigation into the two priests; and intelligence from a foreign law enforcement agency.

The FBI analysts also relied on several politically biased sources including the Atlantic, Salon, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Around this time, the FBI built a presentation titled "Traditionalist Catholicism Overview," in which agents identified various core beliefs supposedly held by potentially extremist Catholics and SSPX members — including support for the Traditional Latin Mass, isolationism, conservative family values, and "hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, [and] interreligious dialogue," according to documents included in the DOJ report.

Justice Department

In this particular presentation, the FBI suggested that "radical-traditionalist Catholicism" was not limited to sects that have rejected the authority and/or legitimacy of the pope but included some "Canonically Regular" groups formally approved by the Vatican and "in full communion with mainline Catholic Church."

Despite vague definitions, a dearth of evidence, and a reliance on biased sources, the FBI's Richmond Catholic Memo confidently asserted:

FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists] in [radical-traditionalist Catholic] ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development. FBI Richmond makes this assessment with high confidence based on FBI investigations, local law enforcement agency reporting, and liaison reporting, with varying degrees of corroboration and access.

The memo, which is dated Jan. 23, 2023, also concern-mongered about the supposed threat posed by traditionalist Catholics ahead of the 2024 election and suggested that legislation and judicial decisions related to abortion, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBT "protections" might serve as "catalyzing events."

Justice Department

Shameless

The DOJ report released Thursday highlighted the bureau's various attempts at damage control after Seraphin leaked the memo to the public on Feb. 8, 2023, including the decision by FBI leadership to delete the memo from its files. However, this deletion was not immediate — and staff continued to work on the project.

Citing correspondence between FBI intelligence analysts, the DOJ report noted that the memo remained accessible for weeks and was accessed by "19 intelligence analysts from 13 field offices, along with four agents and two task force officers from two field offices, three senior intelligence analysts from three different field offices, and a Chief Division Counsel from another field office."

Not only was it accessed after the deletion order, but "one of the original drafters" of the memo "continued workshopping it," said the new DOJ report.

In an internal FBI email dated March 17, 2023, an intelligence analyst said that the analyst "spent today tinkering with" the domain perspective and had made "major changes."

Justice Department

The individuals behind the memo at the Richmond field office, at least one of whom continued to work on the project despite public outrage, received little discipline under the previous administration.

The FBI's Inspection Division reviewed the creation and approval process behind the memo and concluded both that it "erroneously equated the ideology of domestic terrorism (DT) subjects who self-identified as ‘Radical Traditional Catholic’ ('RTC') with [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist] ideology, without sufficient support" and that the memo "failed to consider the potential bias and credibility of open-source information" upon which it relied, the DOJ report said.

The Inspection Division also determined that the drafters of the memo demonstrated a lack of "professional judgment and failed to adhere to FBI standards," the report added.

Following these findings, the leadership of the Richmond field office said in July 2023 that the "people involved didn't deserve this" and blasted the whistleblower as "cowardly." The drafters of the memo and others involved ultimately "received positive feedback in their performance reviews," the new DOJ report said.

Accountability

The DOJ did not mince words in the conclusion to its report: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is entrusted with the solemn responsibility of protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans. History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office to uphold that responsibility."

The Trump Justice Department has made abundantly clear that those responsible for this weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans have met some consequence.

"This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity," said Attorney General Todd Blanche. "The individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer with the Department, and our working group’s efforts to investigate weaponization under the previous administration will continue."

After firing multiple employees tied to the memo in June, FBI Director Kash Patel underscored that "this FBI will never infringe on religious freedom."

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DEI refuses to die

Although the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and civil rights laws dating back to 1866 prohibit nearly all racial preferences, most Americans oppose these preferences, and Donald Trump was elected vowing to eliminate DEI — progressives won’t give up.

Their race-obsessed thinking reduces America to intersectional classifications of oppressed and oppressor. This addled concept is a self-defeating dialectic in which no amount of progress on race relations is ever enough — or even acknowledged.

Numerous companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Costco, Delta, and Cisco, openly continue their DEI programs.

Despite enormous advances, with the possible exception of Palestinians and transgender people, no group is seen as more oppressed and deserving of preferences than African-Americans.

In 2025, President Trump issued executive orders that revoked President Biden’s whole-of-government mandates interweaving DEI into all facets of the federal government. Since then, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department under Harmeet Dhillon has filed numerous administrative actions and lawsuits to end racial preferences that disadvantage whites, and some universities, corporations, and charities have limited their DEI programs.

Conversely, many universities have defied the Supreme Court’s 2023 holding in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard by renaming or reformulating their DEI programs. Some are using a loophole in the SFFA decision that acknowledged colleges may consider how an applicant’s race affected his life.

In just the last three months, the Justice Department announced at least 25 investigations, lawsuits, and settlements involving allegedly unlawful racial preferences by the College of William & Mary, Duke University, a Jersey City college prep course, City University of New York, the state of Minnesota, the city of Evanston, Illinois, Arizona State University, University of California Davis Medical School, University of California San Diego Medical School, and 15 other medical schools.

A State Department internal review announced last week found that the Biden administration required foreign service officers to read materials on critical race theory, slavery reparations, anti-racism, and so-called “white fragility.” To be eligible for promotion, they had to discuss DEI with foreign counterparts to demonstrate “allyship.”

They were trained on how to talk about “Black Lives Matter” and “systemic racism” in foreign languages and to use progressive-approved terminology. The State Department claims that it has finally “put an end” to these practices.

Then last month, a federal judge in California ruled that the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Interior exceeded their authority by imposing conditions ending DEI in grants to California cities. Defending Education, an education watchdog, found that America’s two leading teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, are embedding DEI principles into policies for classroom use of AI.

Numerous companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Costco, Delta, and Cisco, openly continue their DEI programs, and the pace of litigation shows that many other companies and institutions covertly do so.

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

In 1996, California stunned the nation when 55% of voters approved Proposition 209, which amended the state’s constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity in employment, contracting, and education. In 2020, Democrats unsuccessfully sought to repeal Prop 209.

California next tried to require public companies to include blacks and other “underrepresented” minorities on their boards. The California courts struck that down. Now, California is moving toward authorizing reparations for its black residents.

A decade after ratification of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court declared that the purpose of the Equal Protection Clause is that “the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States.”

Progressives don’t care.

On Real America’s “Get Real,” RealClear publisher David DesRosiers seeks common ground across the political spectrum. One progressive panelist recently explained that blacks require preferences because it’s not “what you know” but “who you know.” Whites know all the right people, but blacks do not. What a dated perspective. How patronizing of blacks. How wrong.

More than half of all blacks in major metropolitan areas live in the suburbs, and their children are educated in suburban schools. About 12% of the students in Ivy League colleges are black, even after SFFA. There are 61 black members in the House (14%), five black senators (5%), two Supreme Court justices (22%), and about 184 black federal judges (8%). Blacks comprise about 10% of first-year medical school students, 8% of law school students, 2% of Fortune 500 corporate CEOs, and 13% of all Americans.

I am confident that most of these people know someone who can help them and their families, as do black professional athletes, artists, and actors, as well as more than 1,000 African-American mayors, 1,000 state legislators, 14 billionaires, and about 1.4 million black millionaires.

While listening to the panelist, I thought about the middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn where I grew up. My neighbors were policemen, firemen, teachers, and plumbers. Good people. Not one of them was in a position to help me in my career or introduce me to someone who did.

I made my way with hard work and some luck, but never with help from anyone I knew growing up. Of course, I received support from people I met along the way at Columbia University and during my career, as did my black colleagues. It’s called “networking,” not racism.

Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Yes, affluent people know more of the “right people” than poor people and have other advantages as well. Children from poor and low-income families typically face many obstacles due to their socioeconomic status. They often attend inferior K-12 schools and have less time for homework because of jobs or chores. They are less likely to benefit from two actively involved parents and receive, on average, less guidance and assistance.

Students from families in the bottom 25% income bracket comprise only 3% of enrollment in our most competitive colleges, while those from the top 25% comprise 72%. Studies show that high-achieving, low-income children who have lower GPAs and SAT scores than affluent children achieve college grades and graduation rates at the same level as affluent students. Their scores can be “normed” for these differences, even without special programs.

Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites, and consequently, would disproportionately benefit from this approach. That’s fine with me — and more importantly, with the Constitution. Racial preferences are unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral; helping low-income Americans is not.

I defy any children of Michelle Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson, Beyonce, or Ibram X. Kendi to deny that they have every advantage, including a terrific education and a network of contacts that millions of white Americans lack.

More than once, the U.S. Supreme Court has observed that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people." As Chief Justice John Roberts declared, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

When the Constitution, federal laws, and opinion align, progressives should respect our values. Here, that would mean restoring equality and the dignity of blacks by ending the disgrace of DEI.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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